The Ley class was a
class of inshore
minehunter built for the
Royal Navy in the mid-1950s. They had
pennant number
In the Royal Navy and other navies of Europe and the Commonwealth of Nations, ships are identified by pennant number (an internationalisation of ''pendant number'', which it was called before 1948). Historically, naval ships flew a flag that iden ...
s in the series M2001. Eleven ships were built in the early 1950s, most of which were subsequently disarmed and used as training vessels,
RNXS tenders,
URNU vessels etc.
Description
They were of composite construction, that is, wood and
non-ferrous metal
In metallurgy, non-ferrous metals are metals or alloys that do not contain iron (allotropes of iron, ferrite, and so on) in appreciable amounts.
Generally more costly than ferrous metals, non-ferrous metals are used because of desirable proper ...
s, to give a low
magnetic signature, important in a vessel that may be dealing with
magnetically detonated mines. They displaced 164 tons fully laden, were armed with a
Bofors 40 mm gun or an
Oerlikon 20 mm gun and were powered by a pair of
Paxman diesel engines.
The class shared the same basic hull as their inshore minesweeper counterpart the and the inshore survey craft.
Role
Unlike traditional
minesweepers, they were not equipped for sweeping moored or magnetic mines. Their work was to locate individual mines and neutralise them. This was a new role at that point, and the class was configured for working in the shallow water of
rivers,
estuaries and
shipping channels.
Ships
References
* ''Jane's Fighting Ships 1953–54'', R. V. B. Blackman (ed), Jane's Publishing, 1953
* ''Warships of the Royal Navy'', Captain John. E. Moore RN, Jane's Publishing, 1979
''Bassingham'' web site{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050508164507/http://www.withamstaple.com/GArchive/CArchiveHistory.htm#HMS%20Bassingham , date=8 May 2005
Ship classes of the Royal Navy